


Fragments

by IrisPerea2004



Category: Original Work
Genre: Drabbles, Fantasy, Gen, Horror, New Mexican Culture, New Mexico Culture, Oneshot collection, Original Works - Freeform, Other, Robots, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, cosmic horror, just jammin all my ideas over here with little context, non-humans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26216830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisPerea2004/pseuds/IrisPerea2004
Summary: Fragments of universes that come to me and demand their day in the sun. There will be everything from space travel to high fantasy; from serfs searching for glory to robots and aliens.Latest chapter:Chapter IV: A priest watches soul fought for by two different gods.
Relationships: Original Character(s) & Original Character(s), Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	1. Change Fate

"Alms for the name of Saint Teresa," a beggar called in a voice yett unfogged by drugs and drink that so many turned to after years on the streets. His greying hair was long and shaggy and covered his half-blind eyes.

Most ignored the shapless mass of dirty rags sitting at the feet of the Saint. A few trickled bronze coins into the grimy bowl.

One hard-faced woman stopped to glare at him, and he flinched away, waiting for her boot to make contact with his ribs. Definitely a mercenary or a veteran of war. One eye was gone, cut through and sealed shut Scars riddled her body. A niggle of familiarity tugged at the back of his mind as he looked up into the hook-nosed face. 

She did nothing; merely stood there, her one-eyed gaze searching his face.

"Can I do something for you, myser?" he asked, allowing a note of fawning to enter his voice. Sucking up usually didn't hurt.

She twitched at the sound of his voice, and a spasm of anger crossed her face. Before he time to do more than realize his mistake she had him by the hair. He screeched, fumbled to get his feet underneath him.

"I remember you," she snarled. "You made that godsdamned prophecy."

His throat was very dry. _Ah._ So that was what this was about. His _Second Sight_ as it was politely called, had gotten him in trouble a few times over the years; but never with battle-hardened women out for blood. People turned and looked at the spectacle, but none came to his aid and he supposed he couldn't blame them.

"I don't--I don't even know who you are," he whimpered, rising to the very tips of his toes to try and take the weight off his hair.

She let him fall to the ground. "Why should you?" she growled. "You take people's money and offer them a prophecy in return to dump their lives in the mud."

"I haven't done that in a very long time," he protested, scrabbling backwards like a crab. "I-- The sight is gone."

She scoffed. "Convenient. Now feed me the line about 'you're only the messenger,' "

"If you're going to kill me, can you at least tell me who you are?" he pleaded. 

"It wasn't me you spoke to. It was my companion. His name was Matthias, do you remember?"

The beggar shivered. His had been an unhappy fate. "So you're here to kill me?"

"No," she said shortly. "You and your second sight is going to help me save him."


	2. The Pool (Cosmic/Weird Horror, Fantasy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is less a oneshot, more a scene of a short story coming to me by bits and bobbles.

The throng of faithful was a press of bodies, all grasping for a touch on the robes of the penitent as they were led past, one by one. Alois, tall as he was, had to peer over the head of the crowd as robes were thrown to the winds and snatching fingers as the converts stripped one by one and dove into the icy waters.

Alois could not see what happened to the swimmers, but he didn't see any of the devotees resurface. A chill went down his back and a murmur through the crowd.

This time Alois made sure to stay close to the edge of the dark waters as the sun crawled toward the top of the sky. No wind touched the surface and it was devoid of any current that might ripple the waters. It was as smooth as a sheet of impenetrable glass.

Again the procession, silent and devoid of the sing-song chanting so characteristic of the pilgrimages before. Again with the robes of purest white that were stripped off and again the swimmers dove into the abyss of water.

Alois held his breath and waited. 

The seconds stretched and lengthened. A dispirited wail of a voice cried out: "None were worthy?"

"Wait," the high priest said. "Wait."

Alois realized he was still holding his breath and let it out, head swimming from lack of air. That was it then; those poor devils had drowned too.

Then, just to prove him wrong, a head popped above the surface, not a field's breadth away from shore. Alois's lungs ached in brief, physical sympathy. Another, and a third came up as well.

The fourth was gone.

Alois could not sleep. A creeping sense of dread swam over his head and a few times he almost thought he heard voices calling out to him. The cold dirt pressed into his cheek and sticks and stones bit into his bones.

Eight had gone-- gone willingly! into the terrible pool, and only five had come out. No bodies, bloated by water had floated to the surface-- or had they, and the priests had fished them out again? He sat up, staring into the darkness. Or maybe there was something _down_ there, down in those unimagineable depths? Alois shivered convulsively at the thought. 

But no, he had seen no blood either, even when he was standing there on the pebbled beach. Had to be the former thought rather than the latter.

Some frighteningly inquisitive part of him wanted to go _see_ the awful pool, but it was beaten down by common sense and a healthy dose of fear.

"Wake, brother Alois," someone breathed next to his ear. 

It took a few seconds for him to realize what had been said. Alois blinked blear from his eyes, and stared into the narrow, too-close face of a priest. The sky was grey above the peaked cap of the man.

"Your initiation has been chosen to be today," the priest said, his face still uncomfortably close. "Come, brother, get up."


	3. Temporal Technicalities

Eli stared out the windshield, determined not to look at the robot in the back seat or the frail human baby in his? its? her? arms. Dream, a dream, this was a freakishly weird dream.

The old road was all but deserted, thank God. Eli did _not_ want to know what her 'neighbors' would say if they saw her driving a metal/plastic-coated robot thing up to her rented house. _With a newborn. Don't forget the newborn._

This was going to be a long drive.

Well.

"Would mind telling me what in the name of--" she groped about for an acceptable phrase, "--God is going on and why I let a complete stranger who happens to be a robot apparently, hop into my car like it's a fucking Über?"

"I do not know why you offered me assistance," it said, its voice perfectly modulated. Tenor, Eli noted.

"Okay, how about the first part?"

"I was sent back in time in order to serve as guardian for this child," he said as if that didn't raise more questions than it answered.

No, this was too much. Eli slammed her foot down on the brakes and pulled them onto the shoulder of the road. 

"You are telling me I am in a fucking Terminator movie?" she demanded, unbuckling her seatbelt and turning around in her seat. If her voice held more than a touch of hysteria, nobody could honestly blame her. "Fu--What next? Arnold Schwarzenegger comes knocking my door in?"

"I don't understand."

Eli took a deep breath, smoothing back her mane of chestnut hair. _Calm down, Eli. Just take a deep breath and calm the fuck down._

"What are you running from?" she asked, grateful for how even her voice was. "What have I gotten myself into?"

"It is complicated."

"Tell me anyway. We still have a pretty long drive ahead of us."

Eli had pulled into her driveway by the time the robot was done with his story. Save for a few clarifying questions she had been all but silent.

"So," she said slowly, turning the keys and pulling them out of the ignition, "I _am_ in a damn Terminator movie?" 

"I still do not understand what you are referencing."

She snorted, shoved open the car door and swung her legs out of the car. "I have a feeling I'll regret this," she muttered. Then, louder, she added: "Well, are you coming in or aren't you?"

_You're lucky I have a soft spot for babies._


	4. At The Feet Of The Trickster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Background: The culture of Voiñen is based mostly around what I know, what has been passed down to me, of my New Mexican and rather Catholic heritage, tho not as much actually made it into the work as I'd like. Essentially self indulgent.

The Three-Hallowed Eve was both a wonderful and frightening day in the year. People prayed to the benevolent Mother to protect them from the occasionally cruel tricks of her god-sibling, the Cat-Coyote in the coming winter when the Mother's power began to wane. 

The great cathedral in Ai-Velath, and the other and far smaller churches in each village and even the small chapel in the stronghold of Cimarrth held services each Three-Hallows; blessing the congregations to protect them when the Trickster walked unbound.

In the stuccoed church in a small village on the shores of Lake Voiñen, Matías was quenching the candles before he went to bed. He murmured prayers as he did so; not prayers to the Mother herself, but to the saints, both patron and name-saints.

When he reached the candle left by the man who owned the largest bean fields for miles, for a moments he hesitated and caught himself in the unpriestly act of wishing a pox on the man instead of a prayer for his soul. Fransisco was a greedy man and had the habit of giving himself all kinds of airs. Abashed, he murmered a brief prayer for his own soul. The Trickster had tempted him aside and he had inadvertently followed.

"He's such a nice boy," he heard someone say brightly. He jumped, wondering who would be coming here at this late hour. "I think maybe I'll steal him from you."

He turned, searching for the speaker. Despite himsef, his heart was thudding. 

A tall woman in men's clothing stood in the aisle, her arms folded across her chest, and her eyes fixed unerringly on Matías. Her eyes were very strange and he found he could not look at her for too long.

Something like a whispered sigh came from behind the poor man. "You're scaring him, dear brother-sister."

There was no flash, no suden disappearance nothing. In the blink of an eye, the Trickster was instead a woman of olive skin and raven-black hair. Her skirt brushed the tops of her soft calfskin boots and the shawl wrapped around her shoulders held no trace of ostentatious ortamentation. "Is this better?" she murmured, her eyes downcast.

Matías was struck dumb. He fumbled for his rosary and gripped until his fingers were white as paper.

A rustle of soft cloths and a footfall muffled by slippers threatened to pull his attention from the imminent peril his soul was in. A soft thud, like a cat leaping down from a high shelf, and another woman stood at his shoulder, garbed in russet and wrinkles around her bright eyes. 

"Let him alone," she said firmly. Matías grew even more frightened. The presence at his shoulder was tangibly powerful in ways no mortal could hope to understand. He smelled chili and woodsmoke and the frosts that dotted fallow fields.

"You already have your vessel," the Trickster argued. "His life would change little, if at all. I'm not interested in using his to play pranks. I have a stake in this conflict too, you remember."

Conflict? What conflict?

"That's only part of the whole," the Mother corrected. "You--"

"Hush!" the Trickster commanded. "Some things cannot be said in earshot of mortals, no matter how holy they might be." She seemed almost embarrassed.

The Mother seemed to laugh; and it was not a delicate sound as was mimicked by so many women as the epitome of genteel laughter. It was a full, hearty laugh that lifted Matías's spirits. She was the Mother. Whatever she did, it would be woth his best interests at heart.

"Go to bed, dear boy," she ordered kindly. "This is all just a peculiar dream, and even if it isn't, we can settle your fate without you hanging over our shoulders."


End file.
